General Electric Company (NYSE:GE) Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Gautam Khanna: I was wondering if you could elaborate on supply chain and aerospace, what the pacing items still are? And if you have any metrics around pace of improvement? We’ve seen in Q1 versus maybe Q4 or late last year anyway, second half of last year.

Larry Culp: Well, again, I think this is a daily, weekly effort where we’re encouraged by some of our leading indicators, I’d point to LEAP probably. That’s the platform that garners the largest portion of our attention today, right, with deliveries up 50%, sequentially up 10%. And that’s probably just as important a number as we think about how we deliver 1,700 units this year as we shared in March. We are making progress. I think if you look at supplier on-time delivery as one example, if you look at material inputs being another, just our ability to hit our targets on a weekly basis internally, I see signs of progress, right? I sit with Russell and his team. We go through this on a regular basis. I’m encouraged by the intensity of the daily management that we’re bringing not only to our own operations, but with our suppliers.

I had an opportunity to walk a number of our own shops and do the same with some of our suppliers in the first quarter and to see how we’re having that impact. But it’s still challenging. I don’t want to, in any way, suggest otherwise. But I’m encouraged by what we’re doing. I think we’ve learned a lot in the first quarter from our efforts in and around LEAP that we are porting to our other product lines. That will be particularly important in Defense. You saw that we cleared some of what we left behind in March and early April. But that said, there’s a lot around that daily management intensity and discipline we’ve seen in LEAP that we need to make sure as part of our Defense business and those core facilities through the rest of this year to deliver on that high single-digit number.

Steven Winoker: Great. Larry, any final comments?

Larry Culp: Steve, that went by quickly. Well, just to close, obviously, an encouraging start to 2023. Our plans to stand up GE Aerospace and GE Vernova as 2 leading independent companies are advancing. We appreciate your time today, your interest in GE and your investment in our company. And again, we hope to see many of you at the Paris Air Show in June for our GE Aerospace presentation. Thank you.

Operator: Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. This concludes today’s conference. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.